I was perusing the VSTO MSDN forum a couple days ago and I saw Add a command button to the send email screen. This person (Bear23 to be exact) wanted to add a button to an Outlook 2003 Inspector. Well, not only do I know how to do this, but I have code I know works. I have Office 2007 and VSTO 2005 SE on both of my main computers, so I fire up my VPC with Office 2003 and VSTO. I create a new VSTO Outlook project, add my existing code, confirm it works and post the code.
Bear23 writes back that my code doesn't work and yields an error on the following code:
openInspectors = this.Inspectors;
The error is ThisAddIn does not contain a definition for 'Inspectors'
The code works on my machine, but not Bear23's. So yesterday ends with both of us confused.
This morning, I notice that in the post, Bear23 said that he or she is using VSTO 2005 SE. I have VSTO 2005 on my VPC. So I install VSTO 2005 SE and what do you know, my code now yields the same error.
In VSTO 2005, you have one option for creating Outlook 2003 Add-ins. You can select Office as the project type and Outlook Add-in as the template.
If you do this (and I did the first time), your project has a ThisApplication class and the code above works just fine. "this" refers to Outlook and Outlook has a collection of Inspectors.
If you install VSTO 2005 SE over VSTO 2005 you have two options for creating Outlook 2003 Add-ins. You can select 2003 Add-ins as the project type and Outlook Add-in as the template. If you only have VSTO 2005 SE, which is Bear23's situation, you only get this option.
If you choose this template (which Bear23 did), your project has a ThisAddIn class and the code above does not work. "this" refers to the add-in, not to Outlook. "this.Application" refers to Outlook and you use the following code:
openInspectors = this.Application.Inspectors;
So there are three different scenarios, and any given VSTO user will fall into one of them. Next time I give somebody code or use someone else's code, I should check to make sure we are in synch on which type of Add-in we are creating. You should too.
Here is the demo script for the VSTO 2005 SE Outlook Add-In demo I did today in the Webcast. The Add-In lets you select a contact from the AdventureWorks database and then populate a mail message with boilerplate and information from the database.
Hope you enjoy this. Comments and questions welcome.
Create the project
1. Create a new Outlook 2007 Add-in project named ContactsAddIn.
Create the data source
1. Add a new data source, connecting to AdventureWorks.
2. Select the Contact table.
3. Include FirstName, LastName, EmailAddress and Phone.
4. Open the DataSet Designer.
5. Configure the TableAdapter.
6. Add the following to the query:
WHERE LastName LIKE @lastName + '%'
ORDER BY LastName, FirstName
7. Click Advanced Options.
8. Make sure Generate statements is unchecked.
9. Change the method names to FillByContact and GetDataByContact
10. Finish.
11. Close the dataset.
Create the user control
1. Add a new user control named Contacts.
2. Drag the Contact table from the Data Sources Window onto the user control.
3. Delete the navigation control.
4. Uncheck Adding, Editing and Deleting for the grid.
5. Edit Columns.
6. Remove EmailAddress and Phone.
7. Swap the order of LastName and FirstName.
8. Add a space to the headers for LastName and FirstName.
9. Set grid’s RowHeadersVisible property to False.
10. Set SelectionMode to FullRowSelect.
11. Set ScrollBars to Vertical.
12. Make the grid 215 wide.
13. Make LastNameToolStripTextBox 50 wide.
14. Change the Text property of FillByContactToolStripButton to Search.
15. Add a button named PopulateEmailButton to the control and center it.
16. Make the user control 225 wide.
17. Double click the FillByContactToolStripButton button and see the code that runs.
Customize the Ribbon Xml
1. Add a new Ribbon support item to the project.
2. Uncomment the ThisAddin code.
3. Open Ribbon1.xml.
4. Replace the xml with the following:
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui"
onLoad="OnLoad">
<ribbon>
<tabs>
<tab id="VSTOAddIns" label="VSTO Add-Ins">
<group id="Group1" label="Helpers" visible ="1">
<button id="Contacts" label="Contact info"
onAction="ContactsButtonClick"
imageMso="MailSelectNames"/>
</group>
</tab>
</tabs>
</ribbon>
</customUI>
Add Ribbon Xml as project resource
1. Open the Resource tab of the Project designer.
2. Drag Ribbon1.xml onto the designer.
3. Close and save.
Add code to the Ribbon class
1. Return to Ribbon1.vb.
2. Add the following code to declare a variable that records if the Contacts custom task pane is visible.
Private contactsControlVisible As Boolean
3. Replace the code in GetCustomUI with the following code.
If ribbonID = "Microsoft.Outlook.Mail.Compose" Then
Return My.Resources.Ribbon1
Else
Return ""
End If
4. Replace OnToggleButton1 with the following code.
Public Sub ContactsButtonClick( _
ByVal control As Office.IRibbonControl)
If Not contactsControlVisible Then
' Display the Contacts task pane
Globals.ThisAddIn.AddContactsTaskPane()
Else
' Hide the Contacts task pane
Globals.ThisAddIn.RemoveContactsTaskPane()
End If
contactsControlVisible = Not contactsControlVisible
End Sub
Add code to display and hide the custom task pane
1. Open ThisAddIn.vb.
2. Insert the following code.
Private ctpContacts As _
Microsoft.Office.Tools.CustomTaskPane
Public Sub AddContactsTaskPane()
ctpContacts = Me.CustomTaskPanes.Add( _
New Contacts, "Contacts")
ctpContacts.Visible = True
End Sub
Public Sub RemoveContactsTaskPane()
Me.CustomTaskPanes.Remove(ctpContacts)
End Sub
Run the application
1. Save and build.
2. Run.
3. Create a new mail message.
4. Click the VSTO Add-Ins tab.
5. Click Contact info.
6. Enter hernan and click Search. You should see multiple Hernandez's in the grid.
7. Close Outlook.
Add code to populate the mail message
1. Return to the user control.
2. Double click Populate email.
3. Add the following declarations.
Private contact As AdventureWorksDataSet.ContactRow
Private thisInspector As Outlook.Inspector
Private thisMessage As Outlook.MailItem
Private buildString As System.Text.StringBuilder
4. Add the following code to the PopulateEmailButton_Click method.
thisInspector = _
Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveInspector
thisMessage = CType(thisInspector.CurrentItem, _
Outlook.MailItem)
contact = CType(CType( _
Me.ContactBindingSource.Current, _
DataRowView).Row, _
AdventureWorksDataSet.ContactRow)
thisMessage.Subject = "Thanks for your interest"
thisMessage.To = contact.EmailAddress
buildString = New System.Text.StringBuilder
buildString.AppendLine(String.Format("Dear {0} {1}", _
contact.FirstName, contact.LastName))
buildString.AppendLine()
buildString.AppendLine( _
"Thank you for contacting MCW Technologies. " & _
"We are looking forward to meeting with you and " & _
"discussing your software development needs. ")
buildString.AppendLine()
buildString.AppendLine(String.Format( _
"I will be calling you at {0} within 24 hours " & _
"to set up an appointment.", contact.Phone))
buildString.AppendLine()
buildString.AppendLine("Thank you,")
buildString.AppendLine()
buildString.AppendLine("Robert Green")
buildString.AppendLine("Sr Consultant")
buildString.AppendLine("MCW Technologies")
thisMessage.Body = buildString.ToString
Run the application
1. Save and build.
2. Run.
3. Create a new mail message.
4. Click VSTO Add-Ins tab.
5. Click Contact info.
6. Enter hernan and click Search.
7. Select a Hernandez and click Populate Email.
8. Send. (The email address is fake, so you are not really sending this to anyone.)
9. Open a new mail message. The custom task pane is still there.
10. Click VSTO Add-Ins tab.
11. Click Contact info.
12. Close Outlook.
Close the task pane when the mail is sent.
1. Return to ThisAddIn.
2. Replace ThisAddIn_Startup with the following code.
Private mailItem As Outlook.MailItem
Private Sub ThisAddIn_Startup(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Startup
AddHandler Application.ItemSend, AddressOf MailSent
End Sub
Private Sub MailSent(ByVal item As Object, _
ByRef cancel As Boolean)
RemoveContactsTaskPane()
End Sub
Run the application
1. Save and build.
2. Run.
3. Create a new mail message.
4. Click VSTO Add-Ins tab.
5. Click Contact info.
6. Enter hernan and click Search.
7. Select a Hernandez and click Populate Email.
8. Send.
9. Open a new mail message. The custom task pane is closed.
10. Close Outlook.